Hennepin Healthcare history

Between the opening of the school in 1894 and before the United States entered World War II, the age requirements hovered around nineteen to thirty-one.

Date Created: 1904 Description: A procedure in the operating room at Minneapolis City Hospital; staff include Doctor Goetz on the left, and nurses McKellup and Armstrong on the right.

Date Created: 1914 Description: The original plans for the Contagion Building at Minneapolis City Hospital, which housed patients with contagious diseases.

Creator: Hibbard, Charles J. Date Created: 1916-11-24 Description: Minneapolis General Hospital ambulances and Ford automobile used by one of the Assistant City physicians.

Date Created: 1930 Description: Three Pierce Arrow and one GMC ambulances at Minneapolis General Hospital; drivers pictured left to right are Louis Parsons, Nick Polucci, and Ray Maisonneuve.

Date Created: 1938 Description: Patients being examined at the outpatient dentistry clinic on the third floor of Minneapolis General Hospital's Outpatient Building.

Date Created: 1944 Description: Architectural plans of Harrington Hall, the nurses' residence at Minneapolis General Hospital.

In 1948, the St Barnabas Hospital School of Nursing partnered with the University of Minnesota as Science and Social Science courses were taken there, and they also offered a pre-entrance nurse aptitude test for prospective students.

Creator: Johnson, Roger Date Created: 1963 Description: The 1963 architectural plans of the Minneapolis General Hospital campus, showing the diversity of hospital buildings built over a half-century.

The first patient was treated in 1964.

In 1971, Hitchcock called Ernest Ruiz, a general surgeon on his staff, to his office and asked him to “run the ER.” Ruiz was four years out of his surgery residency.

In 1972, one of Ruiz’s first goals was to stop the practice of rushing critical patients “upstairs.” A well equipped room in the ED should be kept ready for such patients.

In 1973, Ruiz was in the ED when a call came from the airport reporting that an airliner was about to land without its landing gear.

In 1974, Ruiz and Prose interviewed applicants for a clerical position to assist.

Date Created: 1914 Description: The original plans for the Contagion Building at Minneapolis City Hospital, which housed patients with contagious diseases. It was later renamed the Annex and used for outpatient clinics and administrative offices and eventually torn down in 1976.

Doctor Louis Ling, EM staff physician with an interest and expertise in toxicology replaced Krenzelok when he became Director of the Pittsburg Childrenʼs Hospital Poison Center in 1984.

In 1985, Brian Mahoney, HCMC EM staff physician, met with Ed Lord of the Veterans Administration to start the Twin Cities chapter of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS). Annual drills involving 50 organizations from the East and West Metros are held.

The first 'Archive Committee' consisting of Hillie Prose, Donna Hoover, Harry Bloomquist and Audrey Kuhne was formed in 1987 to help celebrate the hospital's 100 Year Anniversary.

Mount Sinai Hospital also partnered with the Metropolitan Medical Center for almost four years starting in 1988.

In 1991, the Metropolitan Medical Center closed its doors and was incorporated into the Hennepin County Medical Center.

They developed a plan to save its history and officially opened as a museum in the basement of HCMC in 1994.

When Grand Forks, N.D. was flooded in 1997, NDMS evacuated patients from hospitals there to the Twin Cities using C130 aircraft.